


Sweet Dreams

by Turnandfacethepaige



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Age Regressed Lucifer, Age Regression/De-Aging, Chloe Decker is an exhausted mother of two children and one of them is the literal devil, F/M, Fluff, Gen, If you're looking for full blown Deckerstar you're in the wrong place buddy, Platonic relationship!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 16:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11993646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turnandfacethepaige/pseuds/Turnandfacethepaige
Summary: And the entire time, the whole length of it, he was laughing that sweet, gurgling laugh, running around with zest and energy, like he'd never enjoyed anything so much in his life.





	Sweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> For the Deckerstar Summer Exchange!! For maybemalapert, who requested age-regressed Lucifer!  
> Thank you so much for putting up with me being worried about this fic, since it's the first Lucifer fic I've written, you were really nice, even when I got confused about what to write. I really hope you enjoy this!!  
> P.s sorry I posted this early, but I'm not in the US and it's already September 4th with me.

It had been, simply put, a very, very promising day.

The sun was out, shining through the little fluffy clouds, the sky the colour of a madonna’s cloak, letting gentle rays caress the grass and peep through the closed curtains of Chloe’s room. She’d gotten up on time, showered and dressed and gotten Trixie out of bed, into clothes, run back again into Trixie’s room and gotten her out of bed _again,_ popped her into school with a kiss and a promise of pizza for dinner, headed off to the station, picked up Lucifer, and headed out for a day full of typical summer scenes; a couple walking down the road, holding hands, eating ice-cream. A gaggle of kids running havoc on the beach, shrieking with laughter. A teenage boy sweating nervously next to a pretty girl. A man with a giant machete was marching towards a warehouse, dripping with blood. 

Lucifer had been the one to spot him first, his head jerking round to stare after him.

‘I say, Detective,’ he murmured, ‘I do believe we have something on our hands here.’

Chloe had glanced around, confused at the sudden seriousness that had overcome Lucifer’s features, and spotted the glint of the knife, bloody and silver in the lovely sunlight. Her instinct had kicked in the same minute the screams started.

She'd drawn her gun, running across the pavement, Lucifer on her heels and shouted out to the man.

‘Police! Drop your weapon!’

He stopped, and turned around. He looked old, exhausted, like he hadn’t had a decent meal in months. From where she was, Chloe could spot the blood soaked into the sharp hollows of his cheekbones and the sunken sockets of his eyes, staining skin that looked almost greyish white, and above that, eyes blacker than night bore into her, deep, swirling pools of darkness that held no life, no feeling. Nothing.

Oh, great. Just fantastic. Some deranged possible murderer. Just what she needed first thing in the morning.

But then he was running - no, no running, _sprinting._ He ran like fire sweeping across the land, and Chloe was shocked at how quickly life and speed had sprung into his frail looking body.

Not as shocking at how equally quickly Lucifer had sprung after him, chasing him into the warehouse before Chloe could try to stop him.

Brilliant, she had thought as she began to run after him, fumbling to pull the phone from her jean pockets. Just brilliant.

She had herded round the door into the warehouse, carefully raising the gun and positioning the phone between her shoulder and ear.

There was no sign of Lucifer or the man. The air was deadly silent. In the stillness of the air, Chloe could see dust mites settling into their positions, showing how only moments before, somebody had rushed through them.

So she set off, gun trained, eyes straining, listening, listening, listening. For anything. For some noisy, loud-mouthed English man interrogating or possibly disembowelling a suspect. But there was nothing. Only silence. 

Minutes trickled by, her feet moving slowly, carefully amongst the dusty aisles of the warehouse. Once or twice, she thought she thought she saw something, twitching behind her, peering through the gaps in the aisles at her, a ruffle of breath in her hair. But every time she turned to face it, nothing was there. 

Two minutes in, and, crouching low amongst a crate of boxes, Chloe phoned Dan. As the ringing started to click, indicating he’d picked up, she dimly wondered why the hell she hadn’t done this before.

‘Decker?’

‘I need backup.’ she whispered.

Dan, bless his heart, kicked into action almost immediately.

‘Whereabouts are you?’

‘A warehouse by the pier,’ she got to her knees, peering through the gaps of the aisle. ‘A guy with a machete came in, Lucifer ran after him.’

‘Well, if Lucifer’s there, I don’t really see why you’d need some backup.’ Dan muttered, probably to himself, but Chloe could hear the click of a computer dimly in the background, and the sound of people hurrying.

‘Something’s gone on, I don’t know what - but he’s not here. I saw him come in, but - but he’s vanished.’

‘What do you mean, “vanished’?’ Dan asked, sounding confused.

Chloe began to crawl towards the end of the aisle, gun at the ready. ‘I _mean,_ he was only a few steps before me, and now I can’t see him _anywhere,_ which is impossible because-‘

She stopped.

She had reached a clearing in the middle of the warehouse. A few boxes lay, turned on their sides to make a makeshift table, covered in an array of copper bowls and what looked like stone pestle nestled inside them. A few jars, glowing ruby red in the soft lighting dotted alongside the table.

And in the middle, his back turned to her, stood Lucifer. The man from before was there, but he was on his knees, curled up at the feet of a woman, a long, pale lanky thing, swathed in black strips of cloth, and a weird, floppy looking hat.

Oh, and she was carrying a machete. A foot and a half long machete, dripping in the blood of the body that lay only two feet away from her.

Well. At least it explained where the blood had come from. At least, Chloe really hoped it had come from there. Or not. 

This day was looking to be confusing.

She raised the gun, adjusting the phone and whispering a quick, ‘Wait a minute.’ to Dan, and stood, storming round the corner, and aimed the gun at the woman, pointing it over Lucifer’s shoulder and shouted, in her best Police Officer Voice, trying to hide the waver that creaked in when she spotted the body, lying bloodied and broken on the floor; 

‘Police! Put your weapon down!’

What happened next happened so quickly, so slickly, Chloe couldn’t understand what was going on until about two minutes later.

The woman smiled, raised her hand, and then Lucifer was shouting something, panicked and enraged, a crack, and then a flash of light, a bang, louder than a building hitting the ground, and she was thrown back, hitting the concrete hard on her backside.

A smell like rotten lavender drifted across to her, and she glanced up to see where Lucifer had been thrown to. 

The clearing was thoroughly doused with thick purple clouds of smoke, curling up from the floor.

But when she looked, Lucifer was -

_Lucifer was gone._

Chloe felt her mouth drop, the gun in her hand slowly sink down, training forgotten, as she stared in horror at the empty space in front of her where Lucifer had previously been standing.

Oh Jesus, she thought, Oh Jesus, no, no, _no._

She lurched to her feet, desperately straining to see anything that could possibly be Lucifer. As the smoke began to clear, all she could make out was the puddle of dark cloth that was once Lucifer’s suit.

Her feet were moving before she could recognise it, sprinting, staggering towards it, heart racing, gun lying abandoned behind her.

As she ran closer, tears pricking at her eyes for reasons she pushed down inside, she begged, pleaded to whatever the hell was out there, whatever gods were listening, to whoever could hear her - _please, please, please don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead for me._

She reached the pile and dropped to her knees and lunged out for the clothing, reaching for Lucifer, and for one wild, heart-stopping moment, she felt nothing, no body, no warmth, no nothing amongst the expensive fabric. Chloe froze, her breath stopping in her lungs, hot tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks, as a terrifying, horrifying calm settled on her, the likes of which she hadn’t felt since she was shot - the eery despair of knowing that death was here.

She gulped in a breath that sounded too much like a sob, and fisted her hand in the soft fabric of his jacket, pulled it up to her face to breathe in the familiar smell of spice and woodsmoke and that other smell that clouded around him, untraceable and unknown. A smell of something from another world -

Chloe opened her eyes to meet a pair of blue eyes staring up at her from the floor.

For a moment, time froze. Dark green met light blue, staring at each other in an unbroken gaze, not knowing when to break it - only one able to truly comprehend what exactly was before them.

The jacket fell from her hands and hit the floor with a soft thump as Chloe reached out with shaking, trembling hands to touch the thing before her.

She had thought her eyes had betrayed her, had warped what she saw somehow. 

But it was true.

Sitting before her, cherubic and wide-eyed, was a toddler.

**

Two hours later, Chloe was sat on the sofa in her living room, staring blankly at the baby that was crawling along the carpet in the same way that a snail moves about after a heavy rain fall, and with the way he was waving his hands about, you would think that was what he was pretending to be.

 

Dan had turned up at the warehouse about ten minutes after the phone call, bursting through the front door along with several other armed officers. Chloe had heard him shouting, heard him calling out for her, but couldn't tear herself away from the child before her who stared up at her, eyes huge and wide, bottom lip quivering a little. 

 

'Chloe! CHLOE!'

 

The sound of footsteps pattering behind her, and then a skid of rubber soles on concrete.

 

'Holy-'

 

Without even tearing her eyes away from the baby, Chloe whispered, voice croaky and shaky, 'Watch your language.'

 

It was at that point Dan looked down at the baby, and his shocked expression grew even more amazed, his eyes bulging in his head.

 

' _Holy shit.'_

 

Chloe couldn't find it in her to bother correcting him. She was far too confused to know what the hell was going on.

 

As the other officers scoured the warehouse, a female officer had come over and gently tried to pick the baby up. But he had screamed and kicked and cried, and when Chloe had stumbled towards him, he had reached out to her and cried harder.

 

So she had been saddled with the toddler. She'd neglected to tell Dan where Lucifer had gotten to, and why a kid was lying in his clothing, but to be fair, Dan hadn't seemed too worried about Lucifer. He had concentrated on the small puddle of blood that pooled by the crates that decorated the empty space, the small jars that had crashed and smashed in glassy puddles on the floor. 

 

She hovered behind him, holding the sniffling toddler in her arms, and said, 'So, uh, I'll just take him home then? I'm good with kids.'

 

Dan hadn't focused on how embarrassed Chloe looked holding a squirming kid, and looked to be far more interested into the blood spattered on the floor.

 

'Yeah, yeah, of course, go ahead.' he grunted.

 

Chloe had shot off as quickly as possible and headed home. And now, here they were. Chloe Decker, investigator extraodinaire, and -

 

A kid.

 

Or Lucifer.

 

Or both??

 

_Could_ they be both? 

 

But that wasn't  _possible._

 

From where she was on the sofa, Chloe watched as the child began to drag himself across the fluffy white carpet, giggling to himself. 

 

That couldn't be Lucifer - it just couldn't. How could a grown man just - magically turn into a child? It was impossible. Key word here,  _MAGIC._ Everyone with half a brain knew magic didn't exist.

 

But then that left her with the question - where was Lucifer?

 

He had been standing before her, she knew that, knew it was him from the way he held himself, the way his head was cocked arrogantly at the woman standing before him. She could have recognised him blindfolded, if she could, and she recognised him with his back turned to her. That had been Lucifer, without any doubt.

 

And then a crash, a bang, a shout, and then she was thrown back...

 

The woman hadn't been there when the smoke cleared. Neither had that man. Maybe they had grabbed Lucifer somehow and swapped a child in his place?

 

Because, Chloe thought as she watched the child try and drag himself up onto the sofa, that was really logical. Grab a six foot man, somehow zap him out of his clothes without undoing any of the buttons and zips, and put a toddler in his place that looked exactly like him. 

 

Sure. That could have happened.

 

The boy stopped chewing on the sofa, and looked over at her expectantly. 

 

Chloe had had a kid long enough to know what that look meant. She sighed.

 

'Hungry?' she asked kindly.

 

(There wasn't any point in being mean to a child. And even - God forbid - that the kid just so happened to be Lucifer, then she could make him thank her later on. Hopefully)

 

The boy -  _Lucifer_ \- gurgled happily, as if he knew what she meant.

 

She smiled. 'Come on then. Let's see what we've got for you.'

 

Actually, Chloe was feeling a bit hungry herself. Glancing down at her watch, she was surprised to see it was almost 2 in the afternoon. Time sure did move fast when you solving crimes. 

 

Did she have Trixie's old high chair? She didn't think he was old enough to sit down on his own. But she distinctly remembered selling that high chair off to someone as soon as Trixie got to seven or eight.

 

No high chair. So he'd probably have to sit on her lap or the floor.

 

Hang on, was he teething?

 

Chloe reached out and gently lifted his chin, peering into his mouth.

 

Oh, he had teeth. Said teeth were also fangs, albeit very small ones.

 

Well, he was teething - well,  _fanging,_ if she was going to try and be funny here - so solids it was then.

 

Returning to the sofa, she popped him down there, headed to the kitchen, suddenly remembered that a bored toddler was a dangerous toddler, and darted into Trixie's room to pick up a teddy or two and put them down in front of the boy. As soon as she did, he looked very, very interested in the large fluffy koala that her mom had brought back for Trixie on a trip to Australia.

 

 

So, what would it be? Chloe could still dig out some of that spaghetti they had had the other night, mash it up to the point of liquidating it for the kid, and serve it like a normal human was supposed to eat it for her. 

 

That sounded good. 

 

She dug around through the remnants of last nights dinner, and pulled the spaghetti out into the light to face its maker. Or at the very least, to face a fanged toddler, but wasn't that the same thing?

 

By the time she had finished mashing the spaghetti up for the boy (or Lucifer?), her own had gone slightly cold. Oh well.

 

She turned around, plate in either hand, to see a headless koala, lying motionless on the floor, and the boy looking up at her, the head in his hands, and stuffing puffing out of his mouth. He looked almost confused as to why he wasn't getting anything tasty out of it.

 

Despite everything - despite the fact that she was probably going to have spaghetti everywhere, she was going to have to buy Trixie a new koala, and have Dan pick her up from school, and despite the fact that Lucifer was still AWOL - Chloe managed to smile.

 

***

 

An hour and a half later, two plates in the sink, a decapitated koala in the trash, and with the sauce successfully cleaned off the walls, Chloe flopped back onto the sofa, next to where the kid had decided to curl up with some marker pens and scribble all over the paper she had given him.

 

Trixie had gone to Dan's, so at least she wouldn't have to deal with that on top of everything. How exactly the kid had managed to catapult spaghetti onto the wall above the door still confused her, since he definitely didn't have a spoon or anything near him. 

 

At least Maze would have some advice. Or maybe not.

 

Did Maze know anything about kids?

 

There was the scrape of keys in the lock, and Maze was coming in, kicking the door closed and carrying a paper sack filled with something.

 

'Hey,' she called, sounding almost cheerful, 'I brought some groceries whilst I was out.'

 

Chloe made a sound that she hoped sounded thankful.

 

Maze wrinkled her nose in confusion as she began to unload the groceries onto the kitchen table. 'Are you okay? You sound like a dying seal.'

 

Chloe said, 'I think I might need your opinion on something.'

 

'Mm-hmm?'

 

'It's about Lucifer.'

 

'Mm- _hmmm.'_

 

'Don't get any ideas. I just want to know,' - now, how to word this without sounding like Lucifer had been turned into a toddler - ,'Does Lucifer have, um, any places he likes to go to when he's stressed, or, uh, when he needs to hide out somewhere?'

 

'Only Lux,' Maze replied calmly, 'Or here.'

 

Chloe raised her eyebrows. 'Here?'

 

'Yeah. He says it's peaceful, and he likes seeing you and Trixie. It's here or Lux, that's the only place I could think of that he'd go to.'

 

Chloe said, 'Ah.'  

 

Maze narrowed her eyes at the worry that had creeped into Chloe's tone. 'Why? What's happened?'

 

Chloe said, 'I think you should come over here and look for yourself.'

 

Maze stepped out the kitchen and approached the sofa, frowning as she spotted the toddler. She looked at Chloe in confusion, to which Chloe responded by gesturing at the toddler. Said toddler was now chewing enthusiastically on the marker pen that had the misfortune to come into his sticky little hands.

 

It took Maze all of two minutes to realise what she was trying to say.

 

'Holy  _shit.'_

She dashed to the sofa, dropped down in front of Lucifer and touched his cheek, eyes wide and shocked.

‘What happened?’ she demanded angrily.

Chloe spoke quickly, ’T-there was - there was a flash of light - we were out on a case - and he got hit, and then - then he was - he was -‘ 

She gestured to the kid, who gurgled happily and smiled toothily at her, teeth stained bright green.

Maze just stared at him.

After at least a minute had ticked by, Chloe began to get uncomfortable at the unwavering stare Maze was subjecting the kid to, and mumbled out, 'I - I know it sounds crazy, but - but I think that the kid might be Lucifer. I  _don't know how-'_

It was at this tense, terrifying moment, that maybe-Lucifer decided it would be a bright idea to reach out for the tv remote and fall off the sofa and onto the floor. He hit the carpet with a soft thud, looked incredibly, almost hilariously shocked for a moment, and then promptly burst into tears.

Maze reached for him, but Chloe was faster. Scooping him up, she rocked him, stroking his head and murmuring softly into his ear and he sobbed.

'There, there,' she whispered, 'There, there, it's alright sweetie. It's alright, it's alright.'

Maze opened her mouth to speak, when a loud smash echoed from the kitchen. Maze's confusion turned to horror.

'Make him stop crying.' she demanded.

Chloe squawked, 'What?  _Now?'_

Maze shouted, 'Yes!'

Chloe was about to ask what the hell was her problem when the large poster hanging on the wall suddenly jerked on its frame and hit the ground, as though an invisible pair of hands and thrown it off the wall.

It didn't take much to convince Chloe to hurry up. It took a while, including taking an elephant from Trixie's room and making it do a silly dance that made maybe-Lucifer's eyes glitter, but he finally stopped. He looked exhausted. 

'He's worn himself out from crying,' Chloe whispered to Maze. 'He should have a nap.'

Maze just continued to stare at the kid. 

Chloe carefully put him in Trixies bed, taking care to remove anything that could choke him, closing the curtains and leaving the for partially open, just in case he started sniffling again. She had barely taken two steps away from the door when Maze was grabbing her by the shoulders and dragging her into the kitchen.

'Maze, I don't expect you to believe me, I know it's crazy, but -' Chloe began.

'That's Lucifer.'

Chloe stopped. 'I'm sorry?'

Maze turned to her, her pretty face creased with worry. 'That kid is Lucifer.'

When Chloe stared at her, mouth open and bug-eyed, Maze continued.

'I don't know how, but it must have been something that happened earlier today. Can you tell me everything that happened?'

Chloe stumbled and stammered her way through the events of it all, but by the time she was done, Maze was nodding, deep in thought.

'Sounds like a spell,' she murmured, 'And a strong one, if it made Lucifer a kid. But spells like this don't usually last for long.'

There were a lot of thoughts running through Chloe's head. She attempted to form a sentence in her mind, trying to get all the words together properly, but for some reason, all she could do was sputter out the word, ' _SPELL??'_

Maze sighed. 'Yes. A spell.'

'W-what? Like - like the thing that witches do? Like in Harry Potter?'

Maze said, 'Yes.'

'S-so you're telling me a  _witch_ did that to Lucifer?'

'Yes.'

'And - and now he's a  _kid??'_

Maze reached out and rested her hands on Chloe's shoulders, calm and reassuring.

'Chloe,' she said slowly, calmly, 'You're owed an explanation to all this. I don't know everything, so I can't fill you in on the finer details, but I can try my best. Yes, a witch put a spell on Lucifer. By the sounds of it, she was a pretty powerful one. That man who was with her? He was probably her familiar, or a spirit she had summoned. Yes, Lucifer is now a child, and yes, he still has his powers.'

Between the word "witch", "spell", "familiar" and "Lucifer" Chloe felt herself stiffen slightly.

'What do you mean, "powers"?'

'You saw what he did to the picture frame, and from the sounds of it, he probably smashed a couple plates in here.'

Chloe peered over Maze's shoulder to see the two plates from lunch, smashed to oblivion and back again on the kitchen floor.

'Oh.' she whispered.

Maze frowned. 'You look surprised.'

Chloe said, voice more strained than a sieve, ' _That's because I am.'_

Maze's eyes widened. 'You - you didn't know?'

'That he has powers? Yes! Yes, Maze, I didn't know he has powers.'

'No,' Maze interrupted, 'I didn't mean that. I meant - I -,' she hesitated, eyes darting all across Chloe's face, trying to pick up on something. It only made her even more confused. When Maze spoke again, her voice was low. 'I meant, you don't know who he is? Or what I am?'

Chloe said (read shrieked), 'Am I  _SUPPOSED TO?'_

Maze sat her down on the sofa and brought her a nice cup of coffee, which she then proceeded to pour a shot or two of something she kept in a purple bottle, and handed it to her.

Chloe drank it and almost spat it out.

'What was that?'

'I've been told that when people get upset, you bring them a coffee.'

'No, I meant the stuff you put in it!'

'Oh. That.' she hesitated, a guilt look on her face. 'Call it a pick-me-up.'

'That wasn't a pick-me-up. That was a smack-me-in-the-face-with-a-van-and-drop-me-on-the-floor.' Chloe put the cup onto the coffee table, far away from her.

Maze ignored the insult and put her hand over Chloe's. 'Chloe, I know you're upset. You deserve an explanation for all of this, and as soon as Lucifer returns to normal again, I'm going to make him give you one.'

Chloe sniffed. 'You're being really nice.'

Maze smiled. 'Yeah. Enjoy it whilst it lasts.'

Chloe managed to laugh a little at that. Maze stood up and grabbed her jacket. 

'I'm going out. I think I know somebody who can help me solve this mess. It's going to take a while, but it'll get the job done. Just keep an eye on Lucifer, okay? Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.'

'I do that every other day, even when he's not a toddler.' it felt strange to say. It was weird, realising that the smug, snarky man she worked with was currently sleeping in her daughter's room, looking barely older than three.

Maze opened the door, ready to head out, when Chloe suddenly jumped to her feet.

'Maze,' and the woman in the doorway stopped and turned around at the anxious tone of her voice, 'Maze, he's going to be okay, right? He'll be back to normal, right?'

Maze looked at her. Then she spoke.

'He will be. And if he isn't, I'll kick his ass to hell and back again.'

And she slammed out the house, leaving Chloe to wonder why she had looked so determined and so scared when she had looked at Chloe whilst she said that.

**

Lucifer had been up for an hour, and Chloe had decided that being stuck in the house wasn't going to make things any better.

He had scribbled a couple more drawings of big black dogs with glowing red eyes and comically large fangs, then moved on to drawing and meticulously colouring in what appeared to be a harpy, a minotaur, giant death ray, and a sunflower. The sunflower was colored red and black, but the sky was a bright blue, and a little yellow sun had been drawn in the corner of the picture. The sun even had little sunglasses on.

Chloe had cooed and praised the drawings, noting the little gleam of joy that had come to Lucifer's eye as she did so. He had presented the sunflower directly to her, eyes huge and expectant as he did so. 

Chloe looked from the evil sunflower to Lucifer and said, 'Do you want it on the fridge?'

Lucifer nodded eagerly, and two minutes later, Evil Sunflower had joined the mass of postcards and Trixie's artwork on the fridge, right next to her drawing of Lucifer. 

Holding him on her hip, she noticed how sweet he looked. He looked so relaxed, and so happy, just to be able to sit down and draw to his heart's content. She had put him back down in order to admire the sunflower, had noticed the way he had carefully colored in the black lines, making sure the colors didn't blur and mix together. The dedication was heartwarming.

Then she turned around and walked back to see what he was drawing again. It was the koala, being decapitated by a person dressed in black, wearing a gold crown, and spurts of red blood were shooting out of the koala's body and going everywhere.

Chloe decided that they were going to have a break from drawing after that.

She grabbed a bag - the first time in ages - and filled it with whatever emergency items she would need (tissues, wallet, phone, a teddy in case Lucifer wanted something), grabbed Lucifer out from where he was trying to crawl under the sofa, and headed out the door.

They wound up by the pier, walking along the sandy beach for a while. Lucifer crowed and crawled through the sand, wriggling along, digging a hole that only lasted for five seconds before he got bored and toddled off. He almost got to the sea before Chloe managed to haul him away in time.

And the entire time, the whole length of it, he was laughing that sweet, gurgling laugh, running around with zest and energy, like he'd never enjoyed anything so much in his life. He squealed when he tripped over seaweed, and came back a minute later to Chloe with a bunch of it on his head, growling at her, and Chloe had pretended to be scared, run away from him in mock terror. He chased her round the beach, flapping the seaweed at her menacingly, and when Chloe pretended to trip and fall and beg for mercy, he dashed over, slapping her with it, before collapsing into giggles by her side.

 

This was fun. 

She dusted the sand off him, and led him for a little bit, watching his little legs try and keep up with her, toddling along, before he sat down and reached up for her, bottom lip wobbling and his eyes growing big and innocent.

Chloe always had been a sucker for puppy dog eyes.

She picked him up and off they headed, towards the pier, and the fishermen that lurked along the sides, and the small clusters of stalls that sold candy floss, stuffed toys, and beach buckets. 

But even as she walked by, Chloe felt the anxiety rise and swell like the sea beside her. Maze had promised that she would solve the problem with Lucifer - but could she? Could she solve this? Maze couldn't do any magic. Maze was human.

Wasn't she? 

 

This was just so confusing. Lucifer was a kid, and apparently something else. Magic was real, and so were witches.

Could magic bring Lucifer back to normal? It had made him a baby, but could it be reversed?

The thought of never spending time with Lucifer as she knew him - snarky, smug, giggling at crime scenes, stealing pot from witnesses and give everyone and everything appalling names- was almost saddening. 

 

She swallowed the lump in her throat and continued walking. 

 

Maze was going to solve the problem. It was all okay.

 

They'd reached the end of the pier, watching the way that sunset was slowly rolling across the sky. Lucifer was cooing at the water, squealing whenever a fish flashed silver against the waves. Chloe watched, smiling, and was suddenly struck by a horrible, terrible image - of Lucifer, still a child, never growing up, even as she aged, remaining young and small even as everyone around him faded away. Her breath caught in her throat at the sudden horror of it.

 

In her bag pocket, her phone went off.

 

 

Lucifer turned to look as she dug though her bag to find the damn thing, and pulled it out, to reveal Dan's name flashing on the screen.

 

'Dan?'

 

'I've got some bad news,' he sounded exhausted.

 

'What is it?' her heart leapt to her throat, 'Is it Trixie?'

 

'No, no, no, no. Trixie's okay. It's - Oh my god, Chloe, you're not going to believe this - the evidence is  _gone.'_

 

 

Chloe frowned. 'What do you mean?'

 

'The evidence. The crime scene. The witnesses.  _Everything's gone missing.'_

 

Her jaw dropped. 'How?'

 

'I have no idea. We took samples, we took photographs and witness statements, but when we got back to the station, they'd all vanished. The photographs were empty, all the samples had vanished and all the witness statements were erased, and when we went out after the witnesses, none of them could remember any of what happened.'

 

By her feet, Lucifer grabbed her knees, gesturing to be picked up.

 

As Chloe hoisted him up, she said, 'Have you checked CCTV? Has anyone been with the evidence who we don't know?'

 

Dan sighed. 'No. No one. It was in my car, too. It was right beside me.'

 

There was a mumble down the other line in the background, and Dan was speaking again.

 

'Look, Chloe, I've got to go - if I find anything, I'll call you.' 

 

And with that, he had hung up.

 

‘Damn,’ Chloe muttered, ‘Damn, damn, _damn.’_

No new leads, no witnesses, no evidence, and the only person who could provide something for all three was currently grizzling into Chloe’s shoulder, and approximately three years away from developing speech. 

She set off down the pier, the wind salty whenever she stuck her tongue out to lick her lips. She had walked past a gang of teenagers when Lucifer started whining, grabbing her shoulder and whimpering in her ear. She glanced down. 

‘What is it?’

He pointed at an ice-cream van that stood innocently about two metres away from where they were standing, patterned sugar blue and baby pink, with little paintings of Disney characters frolicking with ice creams on the side. A man with heavily tattooed forearms was leaning out the window, looking in the opposite direction.

Chloe sighed. 

‘Yeah,’ she said, more to herself than to Lucifer, ‘I could do with one too.’

She fumbled around in her bag for her wallet, one hand holding Lucifer securely to her shoulder, before heading over.  She scanned the pictures of ice-creams dotted around the window before she turned to Lucifer.

‘Which one would you like?’ she asked softly.

He pointed at the soft pink ice lolly with a chubby fist. 

Chloe turned to the man and asked him for it, and then for a chocolate ice cream as an after thought. She pushed the money across the counter, handed Lucifer his ice cream, and managed to get hold of hers and take a good slurp of it.

It was sweet and cold and absolutely fantastic. It looked as though it had come from Walmart and cost about two and a half dollars, but it may as well have been a truffle. 

It had been a long day; she deserved a treat. 

They both did.

 

**

 

She sat them down on a stone bench, overlooking the sea, the soft crash of the waves lulling her rocky mind. She ate her ice cream slowly, savouring the sweetness, the soft texture, and sighed happily once it had been finished.

Lucifer, despite being a baby, clearly hadn’t changed much.

He gobbled the ice cream down, almost sucking the entire scoop into his mouth, crying at the inevitable brain freeze. He stuck two fingers into the cone and sucked the ice cream off them, crunching down on the ice cream cone like a dog eating kibble.

But then he looked up at Chloe, big eyes bluer than the ocean that roared beside them, blinking innocently up at her, chubby cheeks dusted in a thick layer of sticky pink ice cream, and Chloe felt her heart flutter a little inside, and sing in a way that it had done when Trixie had been born. She felt herself smile without thinking, and Lucifer, somehow sensing this, smiled back up at her, a gummy, beaming grin, and laughed, a sweet sound, like gurgling sunshine.

Chloe smiled wider, feeling a small laugh bubbling up inside her at the grubby, sticky little thing sitting on her lap, pulled a couple of napkins from her jacket and said, ‘C’mere, you.’

Wiping the ice cream off proved more difficult than originally thought. Lucifer squirmed and shrieked and squealed, and Chloe could feel the laughter growing bigger and bigger as she struggled to clean him up, until finally she was collapsing into giggles, laughing into Lucifer’s dark fluffy hair, laughing along until her stomach hurt, laughed like she hadn’t laughed for months. She sat up right, giggling at Lucifer’s bewildered expression and laughed harder when she imagined how horrified Maze would have looked if she could see them now. 

Finally, she managed to sit up and finally wipe the ice cream off Lucifer’s face. He squealed and gurgled something, grabbing at her face with sticky starfish hands. 

Chloe smiled at him, hoisting him up onto her hip, adjusting him to get comfy.

‘You alright?’ she asked, still giggling a little.

Lucifer gurgled back at her.

The sky was slowly turning pink, staining dark purple towards the west. It would soon be night, and Chloe had two kids to put to bed tonight.

‘Come on,’ she said, more to herself than Lucifer, ‘Let’s go back.’

And she continued to walk down the end of the pier, sitting the baby on her, letting him rest his head against her shoulder, carrying the small, warm, flickering flame that glowed proudly and happily within her, still smiling all the way.

It lasted even as they got home and unlocked the door. Night had begun to fall, and Maze still wasn't home. A message on the landline from Dan revealed that nothing new had been found. No new evidence. Nothing.

But for some reason, that didn't dampen her spirits. She stayed cheerful even as she made dinner - mashing up something for Lucifer, this time making sure that it was something that wouldn't leave stains - and even let him watch some television whilst he ate, his eyes glued to the screen as he watched some old cartoon that had ran when Chloe was a kid.

She'd given him a wash, dipping him into the bath for as quickly as she could, and avoiding looking at anywhere she shouldn't, washing his dark hair, and laughing again when it turned into a dark fluffy mess when it dried.

He had yawned, sharp white fangs peeking out against the pink of his gums, and Chloe had said, 'Alright, mister. Time for bed.'

Lucifer hadn't protested one bit. She had wrapped him up in pyjamas, and had almost gone to put him in Trixie's bed when she remembered the cot that she hadn't bared to throw away after Trixie had grown out of it. The one still crammed in one of the wardrobes somewhere.

She'd found it in about twenty minutes, assembled it in less than that. Memories came back, of being pregnant and figuring out which slot went into where, of coming home with Trixie for the first time and laying her down in her cot, watching her face twitch with dreams and feeling a love like no other burn inside her.

Now, she was putting Lucifer in that cot, in Trixie's room no less, watching him snuggled down into the blankets and curl up, hair dark against the pale of the mattress, and feeling an odd joy flicker inside her at the sight of him, peaceful and content, fast asleep.

It lasted until she'd gone to bed herself, lying alone in her bed in the dark. 

She wondered where Maze was. She hoped she'd be okay.

Chloe wondered what Maze had meant by deserving an explanation from Lucifer, and about what. 

Maze said he'd be okay. She hoped he would be. For some reason, Chloe couldn't imagine the thought of Lucifer, lying cold and stiff on the floor. She swallowed hard and pulled the blanket over her head, closing her eyes and tried to get to sleep.

***

She was awoken with a crash and a shout.

Jolting out of bed like she had been shocked, Chloe wondered what fresh hell had come this time. Was it just a dream? She'd been having a weird one, about falling stars that looked like people, a snakes slithering across the floor of her house to reach Lucifer whilst he slept. There was also something about breast milk and the stars. 

That had been a weird dream.

She looked at the clock beside her bed. 

Three am.

Huh.

Better get back to sleep then, Decker, she thought to herself. There was a toddler waiting her downstairs.

But then there was a low, long groan that came directly below her, and Chloe shot into action.

She leapt to her feet and snatched her gun, lying conspicuously in her bedside dresser and tore downstairs, feet slapping against the floor, dishevelled hair falling into her eyes. She raised her gun and kicked down the door to Trixie's room.

 

The light was on, reflecting on the squashed cot, and reflecting Lucifer, fully grown up, and with a huge red welt on the back of his neck, standing directly in the middle of the room.

 

Chloe screamed.

 

He screamed.

 

 

Chloe then noticed that Lucifer was, spectacularly, unavoidably naked, and screamed louder.

 

That managed to snap Lucifer out of it.

 

He glanced down at himself, snatched the remains of a blanket and quickly held it up against himself.

 

'D-detective!' he squawked, his voice cracking as he spoke, sounding like he had just had a violent encounter with puberty again. He coughed, and when he spoke again, it was back to his normal, rich, smooth voice, albeit sounding absolutely terrified and somewhat surprised. 

 

'I say, Detective, you act like you've never seen a man before.' he gave a weak laugh. 'But given the fact that Trixie exists, I somehow doubt that-'

 

Chloe put her gun down on the dresser, and stormed across the floor, flinging her arms around his bare shoulders and hugging him tight. She felt him jerk in surprise at the sudden display of warmth.

 

His skin felt warm and soft beneath her cheek, smelling faintly of the lavender bath wash Maze had cleaned him with, and she could feel the defined muscle, hard and strong, under her calloused hands. She buried her face into his neck and squeezed him, for once, allowing the panicky wave that had rocked her so strongly throughout the day to emerge the tiniest part.

 

'Don't do that again,' she whispered into his neck. 'I - I was so scared. I thought I'd lost you. I thought I'd never get you back.'

 

There was a short intake of breath above her, and then Lucifer's arms were wrapping around her shoulders, holding her tight, enclosing her in a cocoon of warmth that was just him and her in a room with a splintered cot. Dimly, Chloe could hear the sound of hurried footsteps behind her, a little gasp, and then more footsteps, walking away upstairs, and the muffled sound of Maze muttering something to herself.

 

But it was just them. For one wonderful, warm minute, it was just them.

 

Lucifer gingerly pulled away, loosening his arms around her like he didn't want to let go, and gave Chloe a shaky, almost shy smile. It was strange, to see something like that on the great, smug, Lucifer Morningstar, but it was there. 

 

'Now, detective,' he said, 'Let's go after that witch.'

 

Chloe frowned.

 

As Lucifer gingerly stepped around her, waddling in an attempt to hide himself with the blanket and get to the nearest wardrobe, Chloe said, 'Uh, Lucifer? D-do you mean bitch?'

 

Lucifer stopped, and turned. His face lit up with that sneaky, prideful grin, the little glitter in his eyes that indicated something incredible was about to happen, that he and Chloe were going to run straight out that door and into the night, and it was just them, Chloe Decker and Lucifer Morningstar against the world (or really, LA).

 

'Well,' he purred, 'After what she's done to me, I suppose you can call her that, yes.'

 

And he shut the door, leaving Chloe surrounded by an destroyed bed and far more confused than she had been the previous morning.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wow that was a lot. I think this is the most I've ever written for a fanfic.  
> I called it sweet dreams because I called Lucifer sweet a lot in the fic and Idk what else to name it. Also I like the Annie Lennox song so  
> Btw, the plot is that a witch sent her familiar out for some fresh blood to use in a spell, and turned Lucifer into a kid when he confronted her. The spell only lasted one day though, and Lucifer and Chloe are back in action to save the day and stop the witch.   
> Once again, here's to the lovely maybemalapert, and hope you enjoyed this!!


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